Dream Log: January 4, 2002

My mother gave me her car (a red VolkswagenGolf) to look after while she went away somewhere, and I crashed it. Not just crashed, but horribly crashed - I sent the whole thing down a damp ravine in an ancient forest in some ridiculous attempt to go rally driving, and the entire bonnet and front wheel section was ripped off, leaving the car stranded in several pieces which began to rust in a tropical rain. For some reason she wasn't angry - it was only a car, after all, and I wasn't hurt. I was disturbed, though, because I had been so careless.

Further into the same dream, a friend of mine called Gordon, from the chess team gave me a beautiful crystal bowl for Christmas. He'd stolen it from his dad's crystal factory. I dropped it, and it shattered, spilling thick chunks and sharp flakes of shaped glass all over the floor. I tried to hide it from him, but eventually I had to tell him. He was very disappointed - he couldn't be angry with me, because he'd stolen it in the first place, but his face reflected a deep sadness that I'd been so careless with his gift.

There must have been echoes from the first dream, where I let my mother down, because I had a moment of clarity, in which I realized that this was a debt I had to pay no matter what, so I went to the shop he'd stolen it from and paid for an exact replica. I called Gordon on his mobile, hoping he was still close by, and we met, and I showed him what I'd done. He was very happy, and he gave me another gift, a carved crystal vase.